What Might a Client Engagement Questionnaire Look Like? Part I
15/12
#Engagement #Clientengagement #Employeeengagement #Success
Links to the other two Parts are provided at the end of this portion.
The Gallup organization developed a 12 point questionnaire to reliably measure the level of engagement of the employees working in an organization. What about the level of engagement of our clients? The employee version, called the Gallup Q12, is available on the internet. There is also a copy in Part II. It has been described as follows:
Gallup’s employee engagement work is based on more than 30 years of in-depth behavioral economic research involving more than 17 million employees. Through rigorous research, Gallup has identified 12 core elements — the Q12 — that link powerfully to key business outcomes. These 12 statements emerged as those that best predict employee and work-group performance.
What might arise if we take the Q12 designed for use with employees and re-jig it for Client Engagement? The Employee version helps us to understand what motivates and engages people, people who work in an organization. Is it not then plausible, even probable, that with some adjustments, the Employee Q12 can be applied to provide guidance on how to more fully engage our clients? Clients are people. They just don’t usually work for our organization. An engaged client body is going to purchase more, provide helpful product and service feedback, increase our client base and be every good thing that rabid fans could be. An engaged client body does not need to be sold to, but served in the manner that they themselves request. Is this starting to sound too obvious?
How engaged can we guess that our clients are?
Gallup used their Q12 to poll about four and a half million workers and found the following with respect to employee engagement:
- Only 30 % are engaged (actively add to the bottom line in many ways)
- 55% are not fully engaged (get by, not often actively adding, withholding some, coasting, rarely stretch themselves)
- 15% are actively disengaged (actively depleting the bottom line)
Let us shift the focus to the client, the ones who buy from us. Reichheld, in his book The Ultimate Question, took a huge step toward measuring client engagement by asking just two questions, rather than 12. First, he asked the client
On a scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is definitely a yes, how likely are you to recommend our organization to others?
That response is interesting by itself but does not give enough information to provide direction about what to do more of or less of. So he then asks
What is it that caused you to decide on that particular number?
This would usually provide specifics that could be used to help design future client service and product strategies. This question pair is brilliant in its result and in its simplicity.
One interesting aspect of Reichheld’s findings is the following interpretations of the number responses received from asking the first question.
Clients who offered 9 – 10 scores, he calls Promoters. This group provides about 80% of all referrals. They are active in promoting the organization. I like to say that if a Promoter noticed my possible interest in products of the organization, even if we were somewhere else like the grocery store, they would interject themselves into the conversation and make the recommendation. Wow.
Those who scored their experience at 7 – 8 are deemed Passively Satisfied. They would also say good things but would have to be specifically asked.
That leaves the 1 – 6 crowd who are deemed to be Detractors. The 5 – 6 folks are price shoppers, fans when your product is 1 cent less in price from that of the competitor. The 4 demographic will go negative about you if asked and the bottom 3, 2, 1 will go negative without being asked. Ouch.
Although the Reichheld approach has many positive attributes, the result still does not exactly help us to actually increase client engagement.
End of Part I
Part II can be found here http://yournaturaledge.com/2017/12/15/might-client-engagement-questionnaire-look-like-part-ii/
Part III can be found here http://yournaturaledge.com/2017/12/15/might-client-engagement-questionnaire-look-like-part-iii/
Thanks
Joseph Seiler MCC
